We both know this is great look for those who crave lighter hair but hate worrying about touching up, or stressing over, their roots.

That’s right. Ombre highlights put an end to the ritual of maintaining your roots.

And while it may not exactly be a buzz-worthy trend anymore, it is still worthy of your consideration.

So if you have yet to catch on to this hair highlighting trend which turns the process of coloring on its ear, by all means read on.

Ombre Highlights Defined: We can thank the French for the term which loosely translated means gradual or shading. This technique is a coloring process that offers a transition of color from lightest at the ends to darker at the crown.

This way to highlight your hair gives the appearance of color that has grown out. It offers the benefits of lighter (typically) hair that it virtually maintenance free and with no worries about roots peeping through. Attention is paid to the ends only as the color dulls over time. Leaving you to invest maybe an hour of upkeep to restore the energy, dimension and vibrancy of the blonde and caramel colors every four or five months at most.

Benefits of Being Hitched to Ombre Highlights

This is an awesome, carefree way to color your hair that is nicely suited to the home colorist. Reason being, this is a look that you might describe as “perfectly imperfect”.

Listen. There are few rules and it’s hard to mess up. As you’ll see in the video it’s super easy to achieve a sexy ombre look even if you have never dyed your hair before.

Most anyone with long to medium length hair can benefit from a look that can be either intensely dramatic or somewhat subtle and understated. You can get natural color variation by how long you leave the color on various sections of the hair or by applying a few stylists tricks we’ll reveal as we go along here.

Plus I believe you’ll find there is an ombre for all ages. You can go super bold with more contrasting colors. You can tone it done for a more restrained look. Or you can even dip dye if you’re really daring and apply any color of the rainbow with kool aid. How you approach this is entirely up to you.

DIY Tips in 10 Steps

Terrific’s Take:

Step 1: Pick your color. A popular product to use is Revlon Frost and Glow Highlighting kit. This offers color variations so you can go as light as you’d like. Most opt to stick within a few shades of their natural color going for a more subtle coloration.

Step 4: Following the directions, mix the highlighting/bleaching solution which will include the coloring powder and developer. This should be more of a creamy solution i.e. not too soupy.

Step 5: Split the hair in half bottom and top. Put the top half up and out of the way using clips of some sorts.

Step 6: After deciding how far up you generally want to the highlighted coloring to go (some prefer them higher others want it to remain on the lower parts of their hair) apply the dye to small random sections of hair with the brush and then wrap with foil to let them process. Don’t be afraid to be unpredictable as in some sections you’ll paint the color higher up. Others you will not. In other words change up the amount of hair you are coloring from section to section to give the final result a more natural look. Also you want to paint the most coloring solution on the part of the strand towards the bottom. Putting less further up the strand to give a more gradual transition. Don’t worry too much about 100% coverage. Any unevenness will contribute to a more natural, sun-kissed appearance.

Pro Tip: When done in a salon you may notice your colorist teases the hair a bit right above where the application of color stops. When brushed out these uncolored strands will blend in to help with creating a softer color transition that lacks any harsh line.

Step 7: After completing the lower half, take down the top section and split that into three parts. You’ve got the hair in the back of the head plus the strands on the sides to do, slipping them over the shoulder once wrapped in foil.

Step 8: Once all the sections of the hair are down, you have to wait for the color to process. The will vary depending on how fast your hair lightens. To speed up the processing time you can blast each little foil packet with a blow dryer. After maybe 30 minutes you should check the progress every 5-7 minutes to see how the coloring is progressing. Keep in mind when your hair is saturated with the coloring solution it is going to look darker than when it is dry.

Step 9: Remove the foil and use the shampoo and conditioner that comes with the coloring kit. Given what you’ve just done to your hair you want to condition it – a lot.

Step 10: This is a pretty quick process that with practice you might be able to complete in an hour or so depending on how thick your hair is.

As you can see there isn’t a lot to this. My guess is you’ll like the outcome – a lot. Easy, breezy, ombre highlighting lets you change up your look without completely changing your entire hair color. It’s a dazzling way to bring renewed energy to your hairstyle. Plus it glorifies the thing we hate most about coloring, our roots. So what’s not to like?

Besides, this is a good look for those sick to death of traipsing to see their stylist every six weeks to get their roots touched up. Imagine that. All eyes will be on you sporting a look that is trendy, low maintenance and best of all demands you showcase your roots. While the fashion police might have you believing this is too good to be true as you can see it’s not. It’s ombre highlighting. Available at home or a salon near you.

If you could use inspiring or easy to follow ideas to ignite your color check out our hair coloring board on Pinterest. Please be sure to follow us.

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About Tori

Tori is a recovering shoe addict and aspiring beach bum with a devotion to all things chocolate. Her goal is to make TerrificTresses your online destination for all things hair. Whether it’s ideas to keep things stylish and chic or answers to nagging hair care problems, you’ll find it here. You might look at as your irregular dose of hair care inspiration. Oh and you can find me on GooglePlus too.